Day: April 20, 2009

There are two types of discovery sought by the Relators, namely documents related to the insurance claim giving rise to this cause of action (referred to herein as “the McIntosh claim” or “loss”), and the depositions of seven individuals (three of whom are associated with the Defendants, with the remainder being witnesses to the McIntosh loss).

Defendants, speaking primarily [268] [269] through State Farm Fire and Casualty Company (State Farm), do not object to producing the McIntosh flood claim file; the McIntosh homeowner’s claim file; any photographs or video images of the McIntosh property in State Farm’s possession; and repair invoices and related materials concerning the McIntosh property.

Obviously, that leaves the issue of the seven depositions requested by the attorneys representing the Rigsby sisters – and that’s where I found Judge Senter’s thinking in the Order for discovery prior to the upcoming pretrial hearing most interesting.

He clearly gave the subject a great deal of thought; but, the question is what was he thinking. My non-lawyer reading about the False Claims Act leads me to believe that had he ruled against the Rigsbys without allowing discovery, his decision would have been ripe for appeal.

Regulate me, please, the opinion column written by Allstate CEO Tom Wilson, appeared in the April 15 NYT in the guise of Wilson’s on-going effort to garner support for national regulation of the insurance industry.

“While the credit default swap market is not regulated, insurance company use of credit default swaps is,” Mr. Dinallo said in a statement. “In New York, no insurance company can use credit default swaps except under very specific and limited ways and only with approval.”

Starting in federal court today, a group of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish residents will square off against the Army Corps of Engineers in a trial they hope will prove that failure to properly build and maintain the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet eroded protective wetlands and led to massive flooding that destroyed their homes and businesses during Hurricane Katrina.

The corps will try to convince Judge Stanwood Duval that even with the best possible maintenance of the MR-GO, only better and higher hurricane protection levees could have held back the storm surge.

The trial, expected to last three to four weeks, will be conducted by Duval without a jury.

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